Instead of working out at Burdick Hall on Friday afternoon, members of Towson’s Greek life rushed around preparing for the hundreds of students that would soon arrive in dance attire and a minimum donation of $40.

Glen Banks/ The Towerlight

Towson University’s annual TigerTHON event began at 6 p.m. and ran until 6 a.m. the next morning. This 12-hour dance marathon raises money and awareness with Johns Hopkins’ Children’s Miracle Network, an organization that helps over 170 children’s hospitals throughout North America.

“We have singing groups performing, dancers performing, a sports themed hour, a rave themed hour … that’s at four in the morning … everyone starts to get tired so we start to pump everyone up to keep them going,” junior and director of media relations for TigerTHON Morgan Stritzinger said. “We encourage everyone to stay standing, we don’t want anyone to sit for the 12 hours, so it’s really hard.”

A DJ played popular, upbeat music all night, while OrderUp, the event’s number one sponsor, donated food to keep the dancers energized all night. Sororities and fraternities made signs and played games to earn spirit points, and all took part in the game Black Hole, where students paid to get trapped in a hole to encourage their friends to pay their way out.

This year’s event raised $204,831, just over their $200,000 goal and up from last year’s total of $131,000.

“[Dance] is just super engaging and exciting and the music revs everyone up,” Stritzinger said. “We want to dance for those who can’t, dancing for kids that are in the hospital, dancing for kids who maybe couldn’t beat their disease.”

Here’s a brain twister for you. A student has a GPA of 3.5 but her average grade is a D. How is this possible? It’s a trick question, of course! The student is Australian, where the D stands for ‘Distinction’. At Aussie unis (universities), a Distinction is awarded for a final cumulative score of between 70 and 80 percent. High Distinctions are 80 percent and above, Credits are for scores between 60 and 70 percent and a Pass is awarded for 50 percent and above. However, percentage brackets can vary from one uni to another.

While GPAs are officially recorded on our academic transcripts when we graduate, they are a relatively unknown concept in Australia. If you asked the average Aussie uni student what GPA stands for they might stare at you blankly and wonder, “Greyhound Puppies of Australia?” “Gas Producers Anonymous?” “Gaudy Pools Association?” “Gluttonous, Pious Astronauts-and-their-Wives-and-Girlfriends Club?” Instead, we talk about having a “D” or “C” average.

Another major difference that I discovered here in my first few weeks of studying abroad is the way in which classes are taught and assessed. There sure is a lot of busy work with weekly homework, pages of (sometimes mindless) tasks and heaps of pesky tests, quizzes, assignments and exams. In Australia, classes typically have two or three major assignments or essays per semester, and the rest of your grade comes from your final exam. In some classes I have taken back home, the final exam counted for as much as 80 percent of my grade. I even heard about a law subject in which an essay worth 20 percent of your grade is optional, and can be substituted out to make your final exam worth 100 percent of your grade if so desired. This situation is less than ideal if exam taking is not your forte.

Without the handholding of weekly tasks and mini-tests, and with no obligation to do assignments or homework, Aussie students have to be more independent learners. Attendance is not usually taken in lectures or tutorials and if it is, it doesn’t always contribute to your final grade. So if you want to play hooky all semester, go ahead, but good luck to you when finals hit and you’ve got a final exam worth 70 percent of your grade quickly approaching. Extreme (and I mean extreme) measures are taken to cram a semester’s worth of knowledge into your brain in a short space of time. Most Aussie unis have a one-week break for studying before exams begin. This is sometimes called “swot vac” and is abbreviated and derived from “sweat vacation.” Doesn’t quite have the same ring and connotation as “Spring Break” does it? Having experienced both education approaches now, my preference would be a system somewhere between the two.

The plot of “Unbroken” is an incredible true story of survival. Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell), an Olympian, survives in a raft for 47 days during World War II after his plane malfunctions and crashes in the Pacific Ocean. Eventually, he is “rescued” by Japanese soldiers and sent to multiple prisoner of war camps for the remainder of the war.

“Unbroken” is just okay. It’s generic, when it should be anything but, which is odd considering the large amount of talent involved in making the film. The Coen Brothers co-wrote the script, the cinematographer was Roger Deakins (whose recent films include “Prisoners” and “Skyfall”), and Tim Squyres (whose credits include “Life of Pi”) edited the film. All have impressive films on their resume, and Alexandre Desplat (who was nominated for both “The Imitation Game” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” for this year’s Oscars) conducted the musical score. Director Angelina Jolie gathered an impressive team to help make their sophomore film, but even then, “Unbroken” is just safe.

Ultimately, I believe the problem lies in the screenplay. Zamperini is not an interesting character, which is a huge problem since the conflict of the film is the survival of the main character. His only defining personality trait from the other characters is that he’s slightly more brave and honorable than the other characters. The most memorable character in the entire film is not the protagonist, but one of his captors, a Japanese prison commander, Mutsuhiro “The Bird” Watanabe. This character, played by Japanese singer-songwriter Miyavi, specifically targets and tortures Zamperini, most likely out of jealousy. The bulk of the movie features Zamperini either in a POW camp, or afloat on a raft. There are two flashback sequences at the beginning of the film, showing his progression from a kid living with his Italian family, to becoming an athlete and finally coming in eighth place in the 1936 Olympics in the 5000m race. These flashbacks never come back later in the film, which makes them seem out of place when looking at the film as a whole.

“Unbroken” ends right as Zamperini is reunited with his family. Everything that affected him afterward, his PTSD, his growing relationship with Christianity and his marriage, are nicely tucked away in cards just before the end credits. However I think that showing how his harsh experiences at war affected him throughout his life, could have made him a more complex and three-dimensional character.

As a self-proclaimed boy band enthusiast, this past week has been a rough one, and we all know what event I am talking about. If you didn’t hear, read or talk about Zayn Malik’s decision to quit One Direction, I will happily assume that you live under a rock. Before you roll your eyes, completely discredit my opinion, or stop reading, I urge you to think back and realize that history may be repeating itself.

Although initially I was shocked, and may or may not have been crying into my cereal while scrolling through Tumblr, I have now come to terms with Malik’s decision and wish him the best. What concerns me now is that he’ll pull a Justin Timberlake or a Nick Jonas and become wildly popular and leave the band in the dust. Timberlake began his solo career after ‘N Sync’s untimely demise, and it goes without saying that today he is one of the most talented and well-known singers. Jonas is the one who decided that he and his actual blood-related brothers should essentially ‘break-up,’ talk about an awkward family meeting, and now Jonas is climbing the charts. I know you would be lying if you said you didn’t turn up the volume and have a full out dance party whenever a song of his came on the radio. One is left to wonder if Malik will follow in their footsteps or will vanish into obscurity.

There are many reasons as to why the famous band of five is now cut down to four, and the one that stood out the most to me was how Malik stated that he wants to be a “normal 22-year-old who is able to relax and have some private time out of the spotlight.” Yes, I understand that the life he lives must be difficult and it would be the worst to not be able to even go to the store for milk without a mob or riot happening, but no matter what he does, he will never be able to have a ‘normal life.’ For example, ‘N Sync went on a temporary hiatus 13 years ago and never reunited, but Lance Bass is still writing books, hosting radio shows and doing guest appearances. The insane success of One Direction will always overshadow Malik’s decision to attempt to be normal. Malik’s eventual solo career will always be connected with how he quit the band right in the middle of a stadium world tour.

One Direction performed their first concert since Malik’s official leave to a sold out stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa that held 94,000 people, and that’s not even the biggest stadium of the tour. Will history repeat itself and Malik will become the next solo artist wonder? Or will One Direction rise to the challenge and not let Malik’s decision deter them from their goals? Give it a year and we’ll know the answer.

Towson University’s Tigers for Tigers club welcomed 15 tigers from Rochester, New York to campus last week.

The tigers, female cross-country runners representing the Rochester Institute of Technology and their mascot RITchie the Tiger, have taken on the challenge of running 1,400 miles in order to raise awareness for tiger conservation and women’s athletics.

Sarah Hugel/ The Towerlight

Throughout their trek from Alabama to New York, the team plans to stop at the Universities in the region who also share the tiger as a mascot.

“There is a little bit of tiger inside all of us that attend a tiger university,” Vice President of Tigers for Tigers at RIT Matthew Partacz said. “We are proud to be a part of that, and if the tigers were to go extinct, disappear, that will be a little piece of us that we would all be missing.”

On Thursday, March 26, Towson’ Tigers for Tigers club hosted a welcome party for the women’s RIT cross-country runners when they arrived on campus, in order to raise awareness for their “Tiger Trail” run.

“Tiger Trails caused a lot of media attention and positive energy from all the schools involved,” Chelsea Connor a member of Towson’s Tigers for Tigers club, said. “It really showed our students and schools that we take our mascot seriously.”

At the welcome party there was food, music and a group of students and friends on Paws Patio to welcome the girls, according to Connor. As part of the event, everyone also walked over to the tiger statue by the College of Liberal Arts building to take pictures.

“Towson’s chapter of Tigers for Tigers got involved because this event combined things we love, tiger awareness and athletics,” Connor said. “We are always interested in finding ways to support tigers and support students … this unique event showed just that.”

The run was created by a group of girls who were part of both the Tigers for Tigers club and the cross-country team at RIT.

“We just want people to know that, yes, tigers are going extinct, but look at us a bunch of tiger schools, we may not know each other but we all feel the same way about the cause and we are able to work together,” Partacz said.

On Towson’s metropolitan campus, there doesn’t appear to be much of a connection between the surroundings of students and the pastoral landscapes described in many country songs.

However, the campus made room for country music lovers on Sunday night in Paws when the Campus Activities Board (CAB) invited artists Love and Theft and Joel Crouse to take the stage.

Glen Banks/ The Towerlight

“Country is not the most popular genre on campus, but Towson has enough country fans that CAB absolutely wants to give them a show that is special to them,” CAB Assistant Director of Programming Matt Unglesbee said. “Each year, CAB tries our best to provide a show across a variety of genres, and our spring concert has typically been when our country show takes place.”

Stephen Barker Liles and Eric Gunderson, who make up the country duo Love and Theft, said that they were happy to be in Towson as it is an area they have not played in before. The band released their most recent album “Whiskey on my Breath” in February, and said that they have only received positive feedback since.

“It is actually the best-reviewed album we have ever had which is nice,” Liles said. “We wrote every song on it and we co-produced it with Josh Leo … so it’s cool to be a small part of what he’s doing in his career.”

Since the album release, Liles and Gunderson have been on tour and playing at various venues across the country.

Liles said that many of these performances have been on college or University campuses.

“I think our music is relatable when it comes to college students,” Gunderson said. “We will play for anyone but I think we have the most fun when we play universities and colleges.”

Traveling alongside them is 22-year-old country artist Joel Crouse, who has been performing with Love and Theft since October. Crouse took the stage as the opener for Love and Theft to play songs from both his album and new songs that have not been officially released yet.

Although he only released his first album “Even the River Runs” last August, Crouse said that most of the songs featured on it were finished roughly four years prior to their release. Since that time, Crouse’s life has changed drastically as he has moved out of his parents’ home, secured his record deal and begun traveling the country on tour.

“By the time the record label wanted to release it I had kind of already moved on from that record, which is weird to say,” Crouse said. “It’s still always going to be a part of me.”

Because of this, Crouse hopes that his newer music will help him to connect with his audiences more. He explained that the music he is writing now showcases a new but similar style, and contains lyrics a more personal message.

“My set now is probably the most personal that it has ever been,” Crouse said. “I play songs that I haven’t recorded, I play songs that I have recorded on my last record, I play covers, but mostly I just try to tell my story throughout the whole show, the good decisions and the bad ones.”

Like Love and Theft, Crouse also said that he enjoys playing at colleges and universities because of the energy in the crowd and the open-mindedness of that generation towards new styles of music.

Glen Banks/ The Towerlight

“I really love playing colleges actually. One, it’s my peers and two, y’all can rock out,” he said. “I like our age group, and playing colleges is just probably one of the best things about what I get to do because I just relate with them so well, and I see people relating to my music and my show as well.”

Crouse also added that with his newer and more personal music, he hopes to show college students and his peers that, “there is more to life than Chevy trucks, tan lines and Fireball.”

Unglesbee said that he felt as though the event was a success and hoped that Towson students had the opportunity to have a fun experience outside of the classroom, which they will keep with them even after they graduate.

Toward the end of the evening, senior Torrie Manning was up on stage singing the chorus of “Free Fallin’” into the microphone with Love and Theft. Manning said that a friend of a friend pulled her to the side of the stage and got the attention of someone working the event.

“I thought it was a very good meet for us,” Head Coach Roger Erricker said. “We had some very good performances and some of our ladies really stepped up and did a very nice job.”

Sophomore sprinter Zanae Freeland highlighted the Invitational with two individual event wins. In the 100-meter dash, Freeland finished in first-place with a time of 12.17. In the 200-meter dash, Freeland finished in first place with a time of 25.16.

Along with a pair of first-place finishes from Freeland, junior captain and hurdler Katelynn Williams won the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 15.99 and senior distance runner Ashley Simmons won the 10,000-meter run, her first try at the event, with a time of 38:08.74.

“I’m used to doing the 3,000-meter run and the 5,000-meter run, but I already have my name on the top 10 record board for those events so I wanted to try the 10,000-meter run before I graduated and it was, surprisingly, a success,” Simmons said.

Junior multi-event performer Ashleigh Stallings won the javelin throw event with a distance of 137 feet, four inches and junior high jumper Emerald Vickers earned a victory in the high jump event with a height of 5 feet, 5.25 inches.

“Ashleigh Stallings had a really good day,” Erricker said. “She won the javelin and qualified for the ECACs.”
The Tigers also finished first in the 4×100-meter relay, with a time of 48.53.

In addition to the seven first-place finishes, the Tigers had six second-place finishes in the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash, 10,000-meter run, high jump, 4×400-meter relay and 400-meter hurdles.

Sarah Hugel/ The Towerlight

Junior sprinter and hurdler Kaitlyn Davis finished second in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.37 and in the 200-meter dash with a time of 25.41. Senior distance runner Elisabeth Tauber came in second place in the 10,000-meter relay with a time of 38:40.33.

Sophomore high jumper Jackie Lavitt came in second place with a height of 5 feet, 2.25 inches. Senior captain and hurdler Emily Wenger finished second in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:04.64.

“It was a great feeling,” Wenger said. “It’s so different competing on our track rather than working out on it.”
The Tigers also got second in the 4×400-meter relay with a time of 3:58.31.

“I am very proud,” Williams said. “The team has been working hard in practice and it showed today.”

Towson will look to carry the momentum from its previous two meets into the Liberty Invitational in Lynchburg, Virginia, which will take place April 3 and 4.

“I think we have a lot of potential to do very well at Liberty,” Tauber said. “We have a lot of fun as a team when we travel but we will also have good competition at Liberty which also helps.”

Towson fell to .500 on the season with a 12-5 loss to the No. 14 Penn Quakers on Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Quakers began the game on a 4-1 run and took a 9-2 halftime lead. The Tigers rallied back to cut the deficit to 10-5 with less than five minutes to play, but they couldn’t get any closer.

“We responded defensively in the second half, but we failed to operate at a fast enough speed offensively,” Head Coach Sonia LaMonica said. “Only having 10 shots in a game isn’t going to help us. We’ve got to generate more shots and we can generate shots by going full speed. … That was the glaring stat for today.”

Penn started on the offensively, taking the early lead just under three minutes into the game. Attacker Catherine Dickinson beat Towson goalie Kelsea Donnelly to make it 1-0.

Less than two minutes later, senior attacker Andi Raymond tied the game with her 11th goal of the season. However, the Tigers couldn’t put together a run and take the lead.

Instead, it was Penn that retook the lead just 18 seconds after Raymond’s goal and went on a 3-0 run. Attacker Iris Williamson scored two straight goals in a two-minute span to move the lead to 3-1 with 23:34 left in the first half.

Midfeilder Lely DeSimone added to the lead with 19:34 off an assist from Nina Corcoran to move the lead to 4-1.

“We certainly knew coming into this game that we were going to have to work hard to get more scoring opportunities,” LaMonica said. “We just didn’t work hard enough. They certainly have a great defense and we should have challenged them harder.”

Three minutes later, the Quakers were called for a yellow card and the Tigers got the man advantage as a result. Senior midfielder Paige Duncan cashed in on the man advantage, ending the Quakers’ run with a goal off an assist from sophomore midfielder Samantha Brookhart.

Penn continued to hold control of the game, though, putting together another run to take a big lead into halftime.

Dickinson got the run started with her second goal, off an assist from Williamson. DeSimone followed up three minutes later with her second tally to make it 6-2 with 10 minutes left in the half.

Williamson made it a first-half hat trick with 8:16 left in the half, beating Donnelly on a free position attempt. Less than two minutes later, she got the assists on Corcoran’s second goal to make it 8-2.

Penn outshot Towson, 15-4, in the half and took a 9-2 lead. It also led 9-8 in ground ball pickups and 9-3 in draw controls.

“How we start the game on the draws I think is important,” LaMonica said. “We struggled in the first half on the draws and that didn’t help us defensively and then into our offense. I think having more success on the draw alleviates the pressure on both ends of the field. … We have to play to as clean a game as possible, especially against ranked opponents.”

The teams went back and forth through the first eight minutes of the second half, but neither team could score. Freshman midfielder Emily Gillingham helped Towson cut the lead to 9-3 with 21:59 left in the game with a free position goal.

After a Penn goal from attacker Tory Benson, Towson answered back with two more goals to cut the deficit to 10-5. Sophomore midfielder Michelle Gildea and Raymond helped to make it a five-goal game with 4:43 left in the game.

The Quakers took control again, stopping any Tigers comeback. Bensen and DeSimone added goals to give their team the 12-5 win.

Towson will be back home Wednesday, when it faces Baltimore rival Loyola at 7 p.m. at Johnny Unitas Stadium. Towson fell, 7-6, at Loyola last season.

For the past few weeks, Towson students have been flooding social media with the same question, “Who’s playing Tigerfest this year?”

While that question remains unanswered for the time being, the process of finding an artist is the same this year as it has been in the past.

Each year, the Campus Activities Board starts their search with the results of the annual Tigerfest survey.

In 2012, 1,446 students responded to CAB’s annual Tigerfest survey. That year, the electronic dance music and rap duo LMFAO was the No. 1 requested.

While Kid Cudi eventually performed at that year’s festival, he ranked just 16th among the most requested artists, and was third among the artists within CAB’s budget.

Some of the artists who were toward the top of the list that year, such as Drake, Mac Miller, Lil’ Wayne and J. Cole were either too expensive or were not available on the date of Tigerfest.

When looking for a Tigerfest artist, Sam Silverman, the CAB director in 2012, said that there are a number of reasons why an artist may be unable to perform, even if there’s enough student interest and they are within CAB’s budget.

“Some artists don’t want to play colleges,” Silverman said. “Some artists, if they’re routing a tour they could be in California the day before, so it just doesn’t work. Or they’re not available. Interest, availability and routing are the three main factors.”

That year, CAB had a total budget of $150,000 for the headlining and opening artists.

This year, CAB has a projected net cost of $188,500 for Tigerfest, $160,000 of which could be spent on the artist. The actual cost will likely depend on the revenue that is generated from Tigerfest. The $188,500 figure is based on projected revenue of $130,000.

There were a total of 32 top write-in artists that were voted on by students for the 2012 survey. Of those 32, there were nine artists within CAB’s budget, including Wiz Khalifa, who was later slated to perform in 2013, Kid Cudi, Ke$ha, Skrillex, All Time Low, Childish Gambino, Trey Songz and Avicii.

When booking a Tigerfest artist, CAB follows the list of artists from the survey and begins looking to put out bids for artists from there.

“After the survey results, you check availabilities and narrow it down internally to who we want to bid on,” Chad Nazworth, the CAB director in 2013, said. “We only bid on one headliner at a time, so while there’s a bid out you can’t bid on anyone else. Each bid lasts for about two weeks, so there’s an expectation that we put on it so [the artist doesn’t wait on the bid]. Sometimes we just get a bad vibe from them and retract the bid. … We try to send out bids before February starts.”

Current CAB Director Emily Walsh said that this year they began sending out bids in November. Drake was the top response for this year’s Tigerfest survey, but was out of CAB’s price range. Only 1,200 students answered the survey this year.

Silverman said that with the survey, CAB trusts students to give an accurate representation of what’s popular at the time. Even if an artist in the rap genre performed at the festival three years in a row, Silverman said they wouldn’t change genres unless the student body’s preferences changed first.

“We think about it, but honestly we want who’s hot. If you want to switch it up and say, ‘We want country,’ but there’s not a country artist that’s popular then it’s not worth it,” she said. “The students want, for the most part, a big name and you want to get that big name no matter what.”

According to Walsh, this year the most requested genre was hip-hop, with 39 percent of students requesting that. The two next most popular genres were pop and electronic dance music.

In 2012, 25 percent of respondents to the Tigerfest survey said they wanted a pop artist, the most popular answer. The next closest was hip-hop with 21 percent.

In addition to genre, Silverman said CAB also takes into account how much students would be willing to pay for a ticket.

“If students only want to pay $10 for Tigerfest, we’re obviously not going to get as big of an artist,” she said.

In Silverman’s year, 41 percent of students said they’d be willing to pay $20 per ticket, while only 16 percent said they’d be willing to pay $25 or more.

When reaching out to artists, CAB works with a booking agent who acts as a communication bridge between the University and the artist. That agent reaches out to the artist’s booking agent, who then confirms the date and price with the artist.

Sometimes, that communication process can take too long. In 2011, CAB was expecting to have Nicki Minaj perform for the event. Her booking agent told CAB that she was interested, but the show was never confirmed. Eventually Minaj dropped out, according to Silverman, leaving CAB with just a few weeks to quickly find an artist.

“Normally, you give your bid an expiration date and say that the artist needs to say yes or no by a date, but we just kept extending that date,” Silverman said. “It just ultimately didn’t work out. We were devastated. At that point, when you go back to that list, those artists take other dates.”

After Minaj dropped off, CAB had to rush to sign artists before tickets went on sale. Eventually, Reel Big Fish, Far East Movement and Brand New were all signed to play, but the concert was cut short by a thunderstorm.

Silverman, Nazworth and Walsh all said they learned from that experience, and have started to plan Tigerfest even further in advance.

“We have had artists that we were really set on, and then they can pull out on us as late as February,” Walsh said. “I mean I am not saying that’s still not the case this year, but we have had situations where we put out an artist, we are all really excited and we let the administration know and we start setting up our reveal … and suddenly something happened and they can’t come.”

This is one of the reasons that CAB makes use of a middleman. Walsh said that staying in touch with, and receiving feedback from potential artists is an important step in avoiding the kind of conflict that Towson experienced in 2011 with Minaj.

“A lot of it is communication,” Walsh said. “We do have our middle agent and it’s great that we work with him because he does a lot of sort of keeping an eye out and seeing what looks good and kind of has his ear to the ground in figuring out what is going on.”